Outsiders in Ylisse
by SpecstacularSC
Summary: <html><head></head>In a desperate attempt to save his life from a sudden attack by a band of assassins, a young prince is transported to the continent of Ylisse, where he quickly find himself wrapped up in the tensions between two countries with a grudge to settle. All the while, the prince gathers allies for his return home to retake his kingdom from his enemies.</html>
1. Prologue

Prologue

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><p>The rotted doors of an old brick-and-mortar building were forced open by the shoulders of a pair of swordsmen who seemed to be frenzied by efforts to evade an unseen foe. Shouting and heavy boots slamming into the moldy tile floor repeatedly signified a large number of somebodies who wanted to see harm done to the two men, and they were steadily getting closer with each passing second.<p>

One of the swordsmen - tall, fair-skinned, slicked back platinum-blonde hair, green eyes that seemed to cut through the darkness of the environment, brown armor worn over a nobleman's crisp white shirt and black trousers - reached with his left arm, a large steel buckler strapped to his bicep, into a pouch on his belt over and over, each time tossing a small object on the floor which was either incendiary, barbed, or liable to cause one to lose their balance. He had a sword on his belt and a dagger held firmly in a sheathe attached to his shoulder, but right now, his intentions were not to use either. They were simply to distance, disorient and hopefully disable as many of their attackers as possible while they sprinted for sanctuary of any sort.

However, his companion - shorter and slightly tanned, raven-black hair brushed away from his blue eyes without much regard to neatness, indigo armor worn over a nightshirt and loose-fitting woolen trousers, suggesting that he had perhaps been roughly awoken and armed from a dead sleep - was simply running. His right hand grasped the hilt of his blade in anticipation of battle, and his left arm, also equipped with a large steel buckler on his bicep, was held in front of his abdomen at all times. He squinted as the air struck his sleep-deprived eyes while he ran, and his breathing was fast and poorly paced. He was tiring out quickly, and would likely collapse if the two had need to run for much longer.

Thankfully, they wouldn't have to. Right about the time the voices of their pursuers on the floor below escalated in aggravation from being caught in the several hindering traps laid by the blonde swordsman, the duo came upon a wooden double-door, kept in much better condition than the rest of the building around it. Not caring at all for politeness or preservation, the two kicked the doors as hard as they could and broke them open, the force of the assault causing the heavy doors to slam hard against the walls like thunder.

Inside the room was what looked to be an altar, and upon that altar sat a spherical device that glowed with an unnatural light. It illuminated the entire room in blue and green, and the air seemed charged around it. Whatever it was, powerful magic was at work.

"There it is," the blonde swordsman said in between heavy panting.

"There _what_ is?" his partner demanded. "You mean to tell me that your plan involves some magical globe?!"

"It's a gateway, Milord," the blonde swordsman explained. "Its purpose is to send whoever comes into contact with it to somewhere - I know not where - but which is certainly not here."

"So you mean to hurl me through a rift in time and space to gods know where, even if it's straight back to my estate, where they'd be _waiting_ in case of my return?" The dark-haired swordsman gave a gesture with his shield-arm which indicated that he thought the plan was rather poorly thought out.

"Sire, I never said my plan was foolproof. Unfortunately, I hadn't the luxury of time to think it through, and we have no other options. The White Guards have their hands full at the estate, and the staff have like as not been slain, and this room is as much your potential salvation as it is a dead end. Those traps won't hold our 'friends' for very long, and I'll not see you fall before you take your rightful throne, so you'll simply have to trust in my judgment, shoddy as it may be."

"Stehnaulf, this is stupid! Surely, there had to have been another option!" the dark-haired swordsman ran a hand through his hair in growing frustration.

The two turned their heads towards the broken doors as the thundering footsteps of their pursuers approached quickly.

"Well if there was, I hadn't the time to utilize it, Lord Carmine. And we're out of time to reconsider things now."

Stehnaulf ripped his sword from his sheathe and stood between the door and Carmine. Carmine pulled out his own blade and backed slowly up the steps to the altar.

"I'll hold them here. I can fight them off long enough for you to get through the gateway to safety," Stehnaulf said.

"What? You're not coming?" Carmine asked, shocked by Stehnaulf's words.

"It is my duty to House Carmine to protect the Lord and his family. Therefore, I must be prepared to die in your defense, and I am so now.

"You're out of your mind, Stehnaulf!" Carmine exclaimed.

"And you are out of time! You must go through that gateway, immediately!" Stehnaulf shouted back.

"The hell I will! I'm not leaving you behind-"

"If you do not go through that gateway, you will die here, in this room, _tonight_!" Stehnaulf bellowed.

"If I leave you, you'll die!" Carmine shot back.

"My life for my king," Stehnaulf declared. "And better mine than yours."

"But-"

"Your Highness, I will not say this again: _Get your arse through that gateway!_" Stehnaulf commanded.

At that moment, the pursuers charged into the room, darkly clad and armed to the teeth. Stehnaulf wasted no time sprinting forward and crossing blades with the lot, skewering three and beheading two more in just the first few seconds alone.

"Your Highness! Go! _Now!_" Stehnaulf screamed over the din of combat.

Carmine hesitated for a moment, watching on in despair as Stehnaulf Lestrade - commander of the White Guards of House Carmine, and the Lord's closest friend - surely fought a losing battle against an insurmountable force, the end result being his death. But, as a stay crossbow bolt shot past his head and into the wall behind him, Carmine shook himself out of his daze, sheathed his sword and sprinted to the gateway, slamming his hand down upon the magical device.

The sensation was indescribable. One moment, Carmine's feet were planted squarely beneath him on a tiled floor, and in the next second, there was only space around him. His hair whipped about his face as he spun about - Or flipped? Rolled? Did rotational axises even have any purpose in a magical vortex? - at speeds that would tear a man's eyes from their sockets, and yet his body gave no indication of imminent self-destruction. Carmine would have had a complaint about the matter, concerning how it was that his body should remain intact and unharmed in conditions that would badly wound a dragon, but his only thought right then was how big a disaster he would have to compensate for upon hitting the ground when he was finally spit back out into reality.

Carmine shut his eyes and anticipated pain, that perhaps he would break all his bones upon landing in wherever it was he was transported to - gods forbid it be at the doors of his manor - but felt only a mildly uncomfortable impact with dirt. With how fast he had seemingly been moving, Carmine was momentarily taken aback at how gentle his landing was, all things considered.

He had slammed his face in the dirt, though. And that was unpleasant. He probably had a bloody nose, if nothing else.

Slowly, Carmine lifted his head and looked around, his surroundings wooded and unfamiliar.

"...The damn thing couldn't have at least dropped me in some exotic dancer's room? That would have made for a much more dignified escape..."

* * *

><p><strong>SC's Note:<strong>_ I did some touching up for this post that I had overlooked when I uploaded it to my fanfic blog. Some things should read at least a little bit smoother, now._

_Stehnaulf's name, as far as I can determine, has no meaning in the English language as a word or a name. However, as three separate words, it's sort of a mash-up of the German word "stahl", which means "steel," and is the name of one of the early units in Awakening; "stehn", which means "stand"; and "auf", which is again German for the preposition "on," making Stehnaulf's name almost translate to "Stand on [with] steel," which is quite appropriate for his position as a guard and former blade-for-hire._

_If you're having trouble figuring out where stahl figures into the name, look at the suffix, -aulf. If you look it up on Google, you'll pretty much be universally redirected to auf instead, which makes it either not a word or a very obscure - perhaps archaic - one. If you rearrange the A and L in the name with the E and N, you'll have stahl. You'll also have the pretty much fake word, eunf, which I can only assume is the German version of the sound effects, "unts."_

_And that's dirty._

_On the other hand, Carmine's name is easy - carmine is a shade of dark red with purple tones, and is used as a color to describe blood. This is important to the character, as he is born of royal blood. Very specific royal blood. However, as he's a protagonist outside of this fic of another story, I'm gonna try and leave that bit of his plot vague so as to not spoil the other story and potentially make poor Carmine out to be a Gary Stu, because that's the exact last thing I want to do, is make one of my own OCs a frickin' Gary Stu. Likely, I'll end up writing an Awakening canon character asking Carmine about the matter, so this means I'll need to try and find a way to explain it... but without actually explaining anything. That'll be a fun process to suffer through, won't it?_

_Furthermore, yes, Carmine's name is also the noble house he belongs to. Again, that cuts into his actual character outside of the fic, so I don't really want to divulge that information if I can help it._

_"But, SC! I'm still stuck on the number of people who were attacking Stehnaulf and Carmine!" I hear the hypothetical voice of the audience potentially ask._

_Well, in my head, it was something like a hundred or so, but my writing might have indicated it to be more like twenty or thirty, so let's split the difference and call it fifty, with another few dozen trying to dispatch of the guards and staff at Carmine's estate._

_In the original post, Carmine's armor displayed the crest of his noble house, but I decided that that was a dumb thing to have to remember for later on, so I scrapped it._

_Anyhow, fun trivia with SC and whatnot. Hope you enjoyed the prologue, and yes, I am more than certain that there's things I'll need to improve down the line. But hey, what's a prologue if it's not the easiest part of a story to write, eh? That's pretty much why it's there, in my mind - to give a vague introduction to the story, and provide the author writing it a chance to test the waters before diving headlong in._

_Catch you next time!_

_-SC_


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter One

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><p>Carmine picked himself up and dusted himself off. Thankfully, as he was wearing battle-scarred armor over old nightclothes, he was less than concerned with the mess he probably looked. That, and if it did anything to conceal his identity from anybody who might recognize him and tip off any assassins in the area, all the better that he wear it.<p>

Carmine looked off to his left and noticed that there seemed to be a grey cloak dangling off a tree branch. To him, there was no reason for the cloak to even be there. There was no body of water nearby to suggest bathing or clothes washing, and there were also no recent tracks that would indicate someone had passed through and perhaps left the cloak there while they set camp. It was just abandoned on a tree branch.

Which meant it was now his, and there was no need to ask questions.

Carmine pulled the cloak off the branch, unintentionally tearing a hole in the fabric. With a frown, he laid the cloak over his shoulders. To his fortune, it was long enough to cover all the parts of his armor that might risk giving him away. Yes, his shield and sword made the cloak lay at odd angles, but he could probably explain it as being safe rather than sorry if anybody asked. Only his gloves and boots, both unmarked and plain, peeked out from under the cloak, and along with the dark bags under his eyes, the dirt on his face, and his messed up hair, they only served to make him look like a wandering beggar.

"Not the disguise I would've gone with... But it more than does the job of hiding who I really am, so it'll work for the time being. Now then, this looks like a road here, so I'm going to guess that there's a town in that direction," Carmine muttered, idly pointing in front of him as though he were attempting to direct somebody else. "So, I should get going, then. The sooner I can figure out where I am, the sooner I can start taking steps towards my eventual return home."

With a pained wince, he added, "And the sooner I can give Stehnaulf a proper memorial..."

* * *

><p>Just as he had suspected, Carmine happened upon a small town before too long. It wasn't too large a place; rather, it seemed more like an oversized hamlet than a town. Yes, there were canals and shops and the like, and yes there were homes with lively occupants, but the place was quiet and seemed to be rather relaxed compared to the usual noise in a typical town. The biggest landmark in the area was the church, which stood on its own and towered above the rest of the buildings - not exactly a great feat, since most of the buildings were only one or two stories tall.<p>

The lack of a wall around the perimeter struck Carmine as... Well, dangerous. He didn't know the area, but with the surroundings being as forested they were, it would take no time at all for unsavory characters to sneak in and cause mayhem.

_Hell, with how few guards there are, they probably wouldn't even need to sneak in, _he mused.

His attention was diverted from his concerns about the town's defense when an elderly villager happened by in front of him. Reaching out, Carmine tapped the man on his shoulder to get his attention. The old timer turned and looked Carmine over with some curiosity, and perhaps a bit of confusion. It was to be expected, really, since Carmine looked to have a rather unhealthily swollen shoulder with the way his cloak laid over his shield.

"I apologize for disturbing you, sir, but I'm a bit lost. I don't live in this area, so I was traveling the road to see if I could get my bearings, and I wound up here. Do you know what this place is called, by chance?" Carmine asked.

"Oh, my apologies, sir. It's never a good thing to lose your way," the elderly gentleman said. "Well, you've happened across little ol' Southtown, as it so happens. At least you found somewhere nice and quiet to get your head on straight, eh?" The elderly man chuckled at his own comment, and Carmine couldn't help but grin, himself. Something about other people being happy tended to put him at ease.

"I'm afraid I need to trouble you for a bit more information. As I said, I'm not from these parts, so I don't recognize much of anything. This is Southtown, you said? And Southtown happens to be in the territory of...?" Carmine asked, gesturing with his hands to signify his confusion.

"Oh, well that should be easy, boy! Southtown is under the protection of the Halidom of Ylisse!" The man replied with a proud grin.

"Ylisse?" Carmine asked. "I've not heard of such a place before now."

"Ha! What, do you live under a boulder? The Halidom of Ylisse is well-known in this land; and our Exalt, even more so!" The elderly man chuckled again, amused at what he could only assume was Carmine simply not paying attention to his surroundings.

It was rather the opposite, though the old man couldn't have known what had transpired in the last few hours. Carmine knew of no Southtown on any maps, and certainly, there was no "Halidom of Ylisse" in his world. And he would have known if there were, because the maps which adorned the library in his manor were detailed down to every last insignificant, unimpressive or unimportant landmark and town, from years upon years of cartographers updating the maps with their own findings as ownership of the estate changed hands through the family and certain key staff positions were rotated out for fresh faces. If he hadn't heard of it, it simply didn't exist in his world.

Immediately after he acknowledged the fact, something in his mind clicked.

"Thank you, sir. I appreciate your assistance. I'm sure I can find my way from here on, now," Carmine said, shaking the man's hand. He let the old timer go about his business before allowing himself a brief, surprised grunt.

"Well, I'll be damned," Carmine muttered, "Stehnaulf's hair-brained, spur-of-the-moment plan worked so well that I'm an entire world out of my enemies' reach. I'm nothing of interest here. Hell, I'm not even _nobility_ as far as anybody knows! I could be somebody or nobody, and it wouldn't matter that I'm really in line for a throne where I come from if I don't bring it up! Gods, what I would do for this kind of freedom back home..." Carmine shook his head and smiled at nothing in particular, not really believing what he had just learned, but not able to dispute the matter either. Carmine took off his cloak and cast it aside, letting his armor show freely in the light.

"Guess I don't really need to hide anymore. If nobody knows who I am, then nobody is after my head, which means that I can gather my resources and allies at my leisure. But first, I should get a room for the night and some better clothes than these rags..." Carmine spied a clothing stand not far from where he was and wandered off in its direction, assuming that it would lead to a market.

* * *

><p>By the afternoon, Carmine had purchased a comfortable room at the tavern, and an entire new set of clothing to replace his current garments. Initially, the shopkeepers and tavern owner had treated his coin with some suspicion, as it did not bear the markings of familiar currency in the area, but all it took to let the matter be was for Carmine to tell them that so long as he was paying them the gold they demanded, it really needn't matter where it came from.<p>

Now, Carmine was allowing himself a moment to unwind from the crazy events that had befallen him, as he relaxed in a fresh bath that had been drawn along with the room's purchase. He nearly fell asleep four or five times from how comfortable it was, but kept himself awake because he remembered that he nearly drowned from dozing off in a bath once, and it left Stehnaulf in the awkward position of pulling his master's naked and unconscious body out of the tub and resuscitating him while two medics looked on, trying hard not to laugh at the young Lestrade's plight. Carmine had been soundly walloped for the incident once he had awoken and was confirmed to be in good health, as Stehnaulf had been crippled by the weight of his own embarrassment for hours at the hands of the White Guards after the medics finally had mercy on him and took Carmine into their professional care.

Carmine sighed heavily. Though he would have liked to laugh at those good times, thinking of Stehnaulf still weighed heavily on him. The man had practically raised Carmine when his parents passed away. In his mind, he should have stayed back and fought alongside him. Perhaps they could have held the assassins back, or even cut them down entirely. Or perhaps they could have wounded the assassins long enough to provide an extended opening for the both of them to escape through the gateway. If nothing else, at least he would have died with his friend and not found himself carrying survivor's guilt.

"I can't let myself be brought down by all that now, though," Carmine said to himself as he got out of the tub. "It'll only make me mope about, and that's not a good way to be if I'm to find my way back."

Carmine took the towel - shocked at how plush it was, despite the tavern not exactly being up to nobility's standards - and dried himself off, then slipped into the new garments he had purchased. There wasn't anything truly spectacular about them; it was a simple, blue, long-sleeved tunic and a pair of grey trousers. If one ironed the shirt, perhaps it might pass for Baron-standard clothing, but that was iffy at best. Then again, his armor wasn't all that grand, either, as apart from the buckler he wore on his left bicep, the leather gloves, his sword belt, and the leather boots, there wasn't really any armor to be spoken of.

Carmine had Stehnaulf to blame for this. It was his typical attire around the Carmine estate that his Lord had grown curious about and started wearing, himself. Stehnaulf had the excuse that the look was standard for swordsmen of the Lestrade family, given their history as hired blades and, sad though it was to admit, highwaymen. Carmine was just doing it for style more than anything else. That, and Stehnaulf made it a point to wear heavy, tightly-woven cloth and ring mail under his clothes, whereas Carmine had to rely on his swordsmanship and the shield to defend him. More than once, he was chastised for having too much faith in his shield when he would be caught bragging about how versatile it was.

"_It'll only be a matter of time before you get skewered on the end of a pike, thinking like that,_" Stehnaulf would say. "_You're a good swordsman, that I can't dispute; and yes, shields have their many applications. But even the best eventually fall when fate's against them, and many of them have shields when it happens. Your luck, and that shield, can only hold you over for so long. I dread the day where I have to drag your body, full of arrows, out of a riverbed._"

Carmine definitely agreed. He attributed his continued survival to luck, Stehnaulf's diligent and agonizing training, and a good dodge reflex, as his uncovered chest should have been the death of him many times over, and being dragged roughly out of bed and through the battle-torn halls of the manor had left him too dazed to draw his sword at the time. Had he been on his own, without his White Guards or Stehnaulf or the estate staff to protect him, Carmine would have certainly lost his head right then and there.

Carmine made a mental note to start doing as Stehnaulf did and wear, at the very least, some leather padding under his clothes. Preferably soon, such as when he actually had the money to purchase any. It would have been no issue in his world to purchase such items, as he could simply draw from his family's vaults to cover the expenses. But now that he was separated from his wealth, he had only the coins in his purse, and those were only enough to maybe purchase a low-value sword were his to break for any reason.

_And gods help me if it does, because aside from being my only weapon, the damn thing has been in my family since the days of my great grandfather. It would be a real shame if I were to be the one that broke a family heirloom,_ Carmine thought.

After taking a moment to strap on his few armor pieces over his clothing, Carmine looked at his reflection in a mirror on the nearby wall and noted that he looked about dead from lack of food and sleep. On a normal day, his face would be vibrant and full, and he would be consciously blocking out the complaints of his butler about his eating habits eventually making him fat if they continued without proper moderation.

Of course, on a normal day, Carmine wouldn't be in an entirely different world, either.

Carmine's thoughts were interrupted by a smell that reminded him of burning wood. It seemed rather close by, and as far as he was aware, there weren't any cooking pits in the immediate area. Well, short of the kitchen downstairs, but that wood smoke was aromatic and warming, whereas this smoke was foul and left Carmine on edge. Looking out the window, he realized it was because there _was_ burning wood, and it _was_ close by:

The town was ablaze.

* * *

><p><strong>SC's Note:<strong> _Wow, okay, so that was a lot of character background I didn't see myself providing so early into this. Although, I suppose it doesn't hurt to get it out in the open early, because then I have a cleaner slate to write the new aspects of Carmine's character on as the story progresses._

_In case it wasn't stupidly clear from all the reminiscing, Carmine is something of a (hopefully) loveable goofball. And I suppose it's to be expected, when your parents pass away early and you're raised by an ex-mercenary family of strict disciplinarians alongside the staff around the joint. It's either that, or Batman, or you become a total ass that people only say nice things about because they don't want to get whipped by a beating stick, and frankly, I hate characters of that sort. They're about third on my list of hated-but-not-necessarily-villainous character archetypes, right under spoiled snob know-it-all and insecure tough guy._

_On another note, I HATE describing clothing. Oh my God, do I hate describing clothing. I just think there's no good way to go about it without it reading like clothing porn, because my brain insists that the audience needs to know every little detail when they probably can figure out the puzzle on their own with only a few important pieces. And it only occurred to me that Carmine was under-equipped for any real combat after I had already written his general description in the prologue - which, now that I read it back, looks even worse than this chapter's description somehow - so I had to compensate with the bit about him doing it more for style than efficiency. He's a lot less foolish in his own story, believe me, it's just something about writing Carmine in a fanfic just turns him full moron on me and I can't explain it._

_Now the next fun part begins - I've decided that he will indeed be present for the Southtown attack, but will I have him link up with Chrom and co., or will he just do his own thing and catch a glimpse of them? And for that matter, will I treat it like the game and only have the four bandits who were present in the level, or will I try and shoehorn a couple extra guys in and say that Carmine dispatched of them specifically, while Chrom and the others handled the rest?_

_I'll be losing sleep over it no matter which way I go, so it's not like I have an easy answer for it._

_Well, that'll be dealt with when I get chapter two up, won't it? For now, just enjoy chapter one, and thanks for reading!_

_-SC_


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

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><p>A hundred different thoughts ran through Carmine's mind as he strapped on his sword. None of which rang quite as concerning a tune as the thought that perhaps the attackers were assassins who followed him through the gateway and were razing the town in the hopes that he would be among the dead. Carmine had his doubts that Stehnaulf would be able to hold all of them back by himself, even with the man's impressive skill in battle and the multitudes of traps he laid along the way, but he had been hopeful up until this moment. Now... well, Carmine could only hope that his fears were unfounded. That perhaps it was just bandits, or a band of mercenaries causing trouble for fun while they awaited their next job. Nevertheless, Carmine was not about to let them get away without paying the price of their treachery, and he charged down the stairs and out the door of the tavern, running straight towards the fires. If the monsters were to be found anywhere, it would certainly be in that general vicinity.<p>

Carmine struggled mightily as the scared townsfolk ran any which way that might provide them escape from the violence and bloodshed, and flaming debris from some buildings fell into the pathways. Carmine stopped momentarily to pull a villager out from underneath a collapsed stall, and then continued to push his way through the mob. He was vaguely aware of some people screaming at him to retreat, demanding to know if he was insane, and warning him of his imminent demise if he kept on going. But he had vengeance on his mind, and so all their words were blocked out.

Eventually, he found the men responsible. And, to his relief, they weren't the assassins who had been following him.

They were, however, a rather strange lot. One man wore nothing but a fur pelt, a gruesome skull as a helmet of sorts, and baggy trousers tied at the ankles, and brandished an axe of rather low quality in his right hand, a small jug of - Carmine guessed - ale on his belt. There was war paint smeared across his well-built abdomen. Another was garbed in a long red coat with fur-lined sleeves and golden sash, and seemed quite intimidating despite his almost-noble attire. Or rather, Carmine thought it could pass as noble attire, with enough touching up and pressing. Perhaps if he got rid of the gloves and the plated headband, that would also help. He held a sword which was also rather pitifully crafted. A third still wore a uniform which shocked Carmine in how alike it was to Stehnaulf's, and to a lesser degree, Carmine's attire. This man wore a large steel buckler on his left bicep, a pair of leather gauntlets and steel greaves, and a studded, leather-padded tunic over dark trousers. He wore a sword on the backside of his waist, like Stehnaulf used to do, and a bandolier strap lined with pockets was slung across his unshielded shoulder. What separated him from Stehnaulf the most was the plated head protector he wore about his cranium, blood red and scraped from years of wear. Carmine thought that perhaps Stehnaulf's attire, while unique to his family and Carmine back in their world, was more common for people of a decidedly less than friendly sort here. And yet, like his other comrades, he was armed with inferior weaponry. On his sword, especially, one could make out a large crack in the blade.

It simply didn't make sense to Carmine. Why would anybody be so foolish as to attack something, or somebody, with their weakest gear? Even peasants would try and sharpen their pitchforks before impaling a man with them if they needed to. Or were these men of a mind that the villagers were easy prey for their assault?

"Light up their homes, and slaughter any that move! Let these Ylissean mutts know just how weak they are!" a gruff voice called out. Likely the leader of this ragtag lot, if Carmine had to hazard a guess.

_I guess that means they're the latter,_ Carmine thought.

At the height of his vigilance, Carmine was capable of handling thirty men on his own if he struck them down quickly enough. But, as he was still recovering from the moment of relaxation he had allowed himself, he felt more sluggish than usual, and so didn't want to risk anything foolish, like running headlong into the heart of the assault. Maybe if he could pick off one or two at a time, he would be able to chip away at their numbers and scatter them. Start with the weakest and least aware, and slowly work his way up the line to the more capable ones as his reflexes tightened from the exertion. Luckily for him, it seemed that the fur-pelted man was a bit caught up in his little game of cat and mouse with the same elderly gentleman that Carmine had questioned earlier, and Carmine felt too attached to the gentle soul to allow the injustice of letting him die by the hands of some brigand.

Carmine didn't give the fur pelt a chance to turn around as he ran up behind him and swung his sword at the man's neck. His sword connected with and sliced through flesh and bone, not beheading the man because of his strong neck muscles, but certainly not leaving him with good odds of survival either as his head lolled on just a small piece of skin that the blade hadn't gotten through on the first try. The force of the strike sent fur pelt sprawling to the left on the ground.

The attack hadn't gone completely unnoticed, as his maybe-nobleman partner turned around in time to see the carnage. As Carmine freed his sword from fur pelt's body, the other swordsman ran forward and sought to cleave his chest with an upward slash from the hip. Carmine was able to put his shield in front of him in time to deflect the attack, earning his shield a new scrape and leaving him an opening to drive his blade through the other swordsman's gut. Carmine pushed on the hilt of his sword and drove the other swordsman to his backside, then pulled his sword back out and swung hard, removing the other swordsman's scalp in one swift motion. His body slumped over and bled profusely at the elderly man's feet. The poor man had gone pale from the gruesome display.

"Sir, I beg of you, try to escape! If you can't, at least find shelter! I'll try and handle this sorry lot as best I can!" Carmine called over the din of screams and crackling fire.

The man didn't need to be told twice. He struggled to his feet with Carmine's help and shuffled as quickly as he could away from the area.

Carmine vaguely saw the silhouette of third man, the Stehnaulf look-alike, making his way through the mess towards where his two fallen partners were, unaware of the presence of their foe. He quickly ducked behind a wall while the man was still far enough away to not see him through the smoke. As the man ran up to Carmine's hiding spot, he was met with a swift left hook across the face, sending him to his knees and disarming his sword. Carmine kicked him the rest of the way to the ground and stabbed him in the back around the area of his heart. Like his two companions before him, the poor sap hadn't even had the chance to really get a good shot in.

It was about this point that Carmine began to hear different sounds - somebody was shouting out movement positions and attacks. Other voices, one distinctly female, shouted back in acknowledgement. Carmine could hear blades being crossed, a horse bellowing, and the distinct sound of magic charging the air, a noise with which he was well accustomed, and deathly afraid of due to a near-death experience during his visit to an academy of magic where a rogue ball of fire nearly took his head from his shoulders. Stehnaulf would have argued to the end of his days in favor of the White Guards being trained in the many magical arts, but Carmine felt far safer behind a line of blades rather than a line of body-destroying explosions just waiting to happen.

But right now, his concerns went beyond his thoughts regarding magic. Had reinforcements come for the villagers, or the brigands? It seemed more the former than the latter, because these people sounded organized, and the brigands were crying out in agony. Carmine felt himself compelled to investigate, and jogged off towards the new sounds.

As it so happened, there was another battle being waged in the square just outside the church. Carmine kept himself hidden behind a fruit stand as he surveyed the area.

There were four brigands, and four people who Carmine assumed were the guards that he hadn't seen around before. One was heavily armored, save for his head, and rode atop horseback with a large, fearsome lance in hand. It was the kind of lance Carmine would approve arming his White Guards with. He rode like a professional jouster, pulling back and then charging forward with his lance down at chest level of his enemies, lifting them from their feet and sending them flying onto their backs with gaping holes in their bodies. At one point, he even ordered his horse to leap across a gap between him and an axe-throwing brigand, using his lance like an oversized dagger as he drove the man into the ground.

Carmine made a mental note to raise a White Cavalier regiment when he returned to his kingdom.

Not far from the cavalier, a swordsman displayed remarkable talent as he ripped another Stehnaulf look-alike to pieces with a sword which Carmine considered to be artwork more than a weapon. This young man wore an outfit which was far more sophisticated than anybody else Carmine had seen thus far (although he questioned the single fabric sleeve over the man's left leg), and draped about his shoulders was an elegant cape that billowed in the wind. He must have been high ranking in the Ylissean noble court.

Just a short ways from them was a young woman with blonde hair tied up in curly pigtails, her cranium adorned by a lace headpiece. She wore a more plain, but fetching backless leather corset, a white cotton blouse and leather gauntlets over a metal-crinolined skirt and calf-high studded leather boots. She didn't fight, but instead provided medical support to her allies with an ornate magic staff when they were injured.

The fourth man stood out the most among the lot, as he seemed out of place in their ranks. In fact, they seemed to see him as an outsider, what with the swordsman calling out to him with awkward uncertainty, and the cavalier apparently making a concerted effort to steer clear of his position. Only the woman seemed at ease around him, happily patching him up again when he would get hurt. This man wore a simple cloth shirt over baggy beige trousers tucked into leather knee-high boots. A belted sash adorned his waist, and the patterned tail of it hung down past his midsection. Over the entire outfit, the man wore a large hooded overcoat, which seemed as though it was hastily stitched together, and bore markings of a decidedly sinister nature along the sleeves. The man carried a golden tome in his gloved hands, and the pages of this tome flipped wildly as the air around him crackled with magic energy. That energy condensed first into an incantation ring, and then into an electric ball which the man fired at another maybe-noble swordsman, who barely avoided the hit, though the stand behind him wasn't so lucky as it burst apart in flames from the impact.

_And that's yet another strike against Stehnaulf's Magic Guard regiment,_ Carmine thought.

Carmine couldn't put a finger on it - maybe it was the magic, or maybe it was the magic and the fact that the man was also a swordsman, judging by the weapon on his belt; or perhaps it was that he was the one calling out the movements to the others, to which they responded awkwardly but without argument. All Carmine knew was that he had a gut feeling which told him that it was probably for the best not to cross this magic swordsman. Certainly, it seemed to be in his better interests not to cross any of these decidedly more expert combatants, but the magic swordsman especially.

And then Carmine noticed the fur pelt man running up behind the young woman.

"_Get down!_" Carmine screamed as he sprung from his cover and charged at fur pelt, sword in hand. The blonde woman looked at him in shock, and then behind her at the fur pelt preparing to bring his axe down on her head. She ducked just as Carmine threw his shoulder into the man and knocked him away from the woman, both of them tumbling to the ground. Carmine grabbed his sword and scrambled to his feet quickly, and so did his opponent, and the two found themselves immediately blade-locked, each trying to drive their own weapon into the other's flesh, setting their feet and using their weight to throw each other about in an effort to unbalance their opponent and get the killing blow. Eventually, Carmine achieved the upper hand and dislodged himself from the fur pelt, sending him stumbling right into the drawn blade of the Ylissean nobleman who, along with the cavalier and magic swordsman, had been coming to the aid of the young woman.

The nobleman quickly finished off the fur pelt as Carmine stumbled back to his feet. He had tripped after dislodging himself. He didn't get very far before he found himself being ordered to drop his sword, ironically at swordpoint.

He complied without question, because it wasn't his goal to end up among the dead.

"Right. I did as you said. And I aided your medic. I'm not with these brigands, I was fighting them just like you. Now, can we please remove the sword from my throat, if it doesn't bother you too terribly?" Carmine requested nervously.

To his relief, the nobleman listened and slid his sword back into its sheathe. Carmine breathed out and hunched over as his adrenaline rush began to subside.

"You're right. You did do us a service. You saved my sister from that brigand, and I owe you my thanks for that." The nobleman smiled approvingly at Carmine. "Had you not shown up when you did, I fear she may have been killed."

"Hey, I could have handled it!" The young woman glared at her brother.

"Oh believe me, I saw plenty enough of people being killed on my way here," Carmine grumbled, glancing back over his shoulder at the ruined alley he had come from.

"You claim to not be with these attackers. So then who do you work for?" The cavalier's glare intensified, and his horse shifted restlessly.

"Wha- me? Work for somebody? You think I stepped in because I was paid to? No, I came here alone! I was just staying the night, and then I was going to head out in the morning," Carmine replied.

"To where? The next town over, perhaps so that you could cause trouble of your own? And perhaps you assumed that by aiding us, we would let you accomplish this unhindered?"

"Frederick, that's enough! Give the man a break, he saved Lissa's life!" the nobleman ordered.

"My apologies, milord. I'm simply trying to look out for yours and milady's safety."

"You have quite the imagination, sir. And I understand what it means to be concerned for your master's health - I, myself, lived under the protection of a bodyguard for many years. As to your question, no, I was going to head out the next morning because I have nowhere else to go, and I figured I could stay longer term in a bigger town," Carmine explained. It was the truth, technically, but he left out the part where he would use his extended stay to make the room he would rent his base of operations in his preparations for his return home.

"After what you did, I'm considering offering you a permanent place in the Shepherds," the nobleman said. "How many other people would have had the nerve to do what you did? The want to defend your fellow man is a trait the Shepherds seek out in our recruits."

"The Shepherds - is that a militia? A mercenary band? Perhaps a guild?" Carmine asked.

"You mean you don't know who the Shepherds are?" the woman, Lissa, asked with a disbelieving giggle.

"Uh... No. I'm not from around these parts. I don't know much of what anything is, here," Carmine replied.

"That certainly seems familiar," Frederick stated bluntly with a wary glance to the magic swordsman. The magic swordsman, in turn, shifted uncomfortably under the weight of Frederick's gaze.

"Looks like I'm not the only one who doesn't fit into the works of things, eh?" Carmine chuckled, trying to lighten the magic swordsman's demeanor a bit. "How about it then, fellow scrutinized one? What do they call a man like you in these parts?"

"Huh? Oh, right. My name is Robin," Robin replied.

"Robin, eh? The first bird you see in the spring. Messenger of nature's rebirth and all that stuff the folklore tales talk about. Seems a mite symbolic to me," Carmine mused.

Robin blinked a couple times in polite confusion.

"Since we're getting to know each other, to whom do we owe our thanks for the assistance?" the nobleman asked.

"My name is Carmine. I hail from a noble family of swordsmen, and have a penchant for tackling brutes who seek to do harm to good people. My butler liked to complain about that, actually - 'you'll get rent in twain one of these days,' he always said," Carmine explained. In truth, his butler was far more concerned with Carmine's clothes, and it was Stehnaulf who had chastised him for his reckless assault, but their roles could have easily been switched had they been in each other's places at the time.

"I would believe him, with the way you threw yourself at that brigand," Frederick remarked.

"Well, if you see him, do me a favor and don't let him know how right he was, alright? My poor dignity couldn't stand the verbal thrashings and 'I-told-you-so' rants I would receive in return," Carmine replied with a chuckle.

"My name is Chrom. This is my sister Lissa, and Frederick is the Shepherds' lieutenant and our guardian," Chrom said, gesturing to Lissa and Frederick in turn.

"Pleasure to meet you all. By the way, I still haven't been told who exactly the Shepherds are," Carmine said.

"I was hoping you were joking, and so I didn't answer the question," Chrom admitted. "Clearly, though, you're not. The Shepherds are a group of people brought together by a common goal to protect the innocent. I am their captain."

"Right, so 'militia' was my closest guess," Carmine said.

"Essentially. And _you_ still haven't given your decision in regards to my offer," Chrom replied with a friendly smile.

"Oh, that? Last I checked, you were only _offering_ me a place," Carmine said. "But, since things have progressed to actually putting the offer forward... What the hell. I don't have anywhere else to be. I'll take you up on it."

Chrom extended his hand, which Carmine shook. "Then welcome to the Shepherds."

It was Robin's turn, as all eyes shifted to him. It seemed as though he thought he was going to be given a much different, and less favorable offer, though Carmine wasn't sure why.

"You did us a service as well, stepping in and fighting alongside us like you did," Chrom said. "You're certainly no helpless victim, that's for sure."

"Indeed," Frederick interjected. "Perhaps you might even be capable of an explanation for how you came here?"

The thought briefly crossed Carmine's mind that Frederick might perhaps be paranoid from having to serve as Chrom and Lissa's protector.

"I understand your skepticism, Sir Frederick. And I cannot explain why only some knowledge has returned to me. But please, believe me. I have shared all that I know," Robin said.

With a smile, Chrom stated, "You fought to save Ylissean lives. My heart says that's enough."

"And your mind, milord? Will you now heed its council as well?" Frederick asked, still thoroughly unconvinced of Robin's innocence.

_It's one thing to look out for your master's safety, but gods, this Frederick character is beginning to sound like a nanny scolding a child for bringing a romantic partner home that she doesn't like,_ Carmine thought.

Signs of annoyance began to show on Chrom's face as he turned and addressed Frederick.

"Frederick, the Shepherds could use someone with Robin's talents. We've brigands and unruly neighbors, all looking to bloody our soil. Would you really have us lose such an able tactician?" After a moment's pause to let the question sink in, Chrom added, "Besides, I believe his story, odd as it might be."

That statement certainly had its desired effect, quieting Frederick down. Robin blinked in surprise, and Carmine could see that he was touched by Chrom's words.

"Th-thank you, Chrom," Robin said with a slight bow.

"So, how about it? Will you join us as well, Robin?" Chrom asked, extending his hand.

"I would be honored," Robin said, graciously shaking Chrom's hand.

Carmine reached down and picked up his sword, then slid it back into its sheathe as a grateful villager approached the group and offered to have festivities thrown in their honor. Though Lissa was more than willing to accept the offer, Frederick overruled her by saying that they were about to head out.

"What?! But Frederick, it'll be dark soon!" Lissa objected.

"All the more reason for us to get moving, milady," Frederick countered.

Unfortunately for Lissa, Chrom took Frederick's side on the matter, which ruled out any deciding factor Carmine or Robin may have had, and the five of them set out from Southtown immediately.

_Well, I was supposed to be seeking out allies... but, should I really involve them with my troubles? For that matter, should I really allow myself to be involved in theirs?_ Carmine wondered as they walked into the forest, the sun setting behind the hills with each step they took. _I suppose fate will have to take the reins for the time being._

Carmine was momentarily snapped out of his thoughts as Lissa was choked by a rather tricky bug that had flown in her open mouth during her tirade of complaints. Chrom and Robin struggled to stifle their laughter, and Frederick smiled wryly at the young woman's plight. Carmine chuckled outwardly and earned Lissa's ire as she indignantly claimed that it wasn't funny. This received less than successful results, as Carmine only chuckled harder.

_...Eh. I suppose I could have found myself in worse conditions than this,_ Carmine decided.

* * *

><p><strong>SC's Note:<strong> _FIGHT SCENES. FIGHT SCENES EVERYWHERE._

_I'll admit it, I'm not the best at writing fight scenes, so it was a miracle that I was able to get through this chapter without as many mistakes as I thought I would have. I also don't know hardly anything about swordplay (swords, themselves, being another matter entirely), so imagine my shock when I looked back at this and realized that I had managed to write this whole chapter in such a way as to prevent my lack of knowledge on the matter from showing through too greatly and crippling me. That'll never happen again, I'll just say it now._

_I wanted to keep the dialogue between Chrom, Robin, Frederick, Lissa and Carmine somewhat close to the game script, so I went and looked up the game dialogue for The Verge of History to use as my guide. It worked out better than I thought it would, although I almost made Lissa say a line which she would have already said before the Southtown attack, and that would probably have gotten me dinged as a result. For Carmine, of course, all conversations will have to be candid and off-script, because he's not canon to Awakening's plot. But if I can help it, I'm going to try and stick to the actual dialogue between the characters who are canon, since it lessens the odds of me screwing their characters up and getting in trouble with the hardcore people in the fanbase. Trust me, I chat on Facebook with a guy who's, if not a hardcore Fire Emblem fan, certainly a well-rounded one, and it would do me no favors to piss him off._

_In response to my questions from chapter one, I ultimately decided that it was good to have a few more guys shoehorned in for Carmine to handle, while letting Chrom and the others take care of the four you encounter in the level in-game, since it meant that Carmine wasn't infringing on anybody's spotlights. The bit where Lissa was almost murdered was just me giving Carmine an excuse to reveal himself and provoke the conversation between him and the others. And, to a certain degree, me getting my revenge on all the little bastards who made it their ultimate mission to rip Lissa and all my other healers apart before everybody else in-game. They made leveling my healers near-impossible, and I hate them for it._

_As for whether or not I would have Carmine join the Shepherds: Yes. Yes I did. I figured it was an innocent enough gamble to make. He's not the tactician who can be a million different classes in-game, he's not some second pure-blooded Taguel that the plot "simply forgot", and he's not some demigod with incredible powers and color-changing hair and radiant purple eyes who is also half-elf and painfully handsome or anything of that sort. Carmine's just a prince from another world who has his strengths and weaknesses just like anybody else, and the fact that his name means fifty shades of jack-diddly-squat in Ylisse means he's not even really that much, as far as Chrom and the others know. As it stands right now, Carmine is just another recruit. Naturally, the truth has to be revealed at some point, as it always does in stories like this, but that will come around when I get to that point - and we're only at chapter two, so it's not exactly high on my priorities list._

_I know that Southtown didn't get quite so badly messed up in-game, but I felt like it would be more realistic to assume that there was more damage done that the game didn't show, because all you really saw in-game was a few smoking buildings and the vague outline of fire around the battle arena in the level. I mean, sure, it played its part letting the player know, "LOL HAY GAIZ SHIT'S GOING DOWN", but that was just the one area, and for what anybody knows, those smoking buildings could have just been people with their fireplaces lit. Albeit, probably incorrectly and I think their rugs might be on fire, but still. At the same time, though, I didn't want to make it seem like Godzilla had an afternoon romp and brought some brigand buddies with him. It's a very delicate line to walk when describing just how badly things are getting messed up, and you wouldn't think it would be._

_Carmine being afraid of magic is something I can probably have fun with later on down the line. In his actual story outside of this fic, he doesn't ever really express his dislike of the arcane arts, or why he dislikes them in the first place (I mean, you try almost getting beheaded by some idiot's mis-aimed fireball and still manage to have an appreciation for mystic powers after that), since he's on a mission that takes priority over those trivial matters. However, in this fic, far away from his own world and with only one real objective to focus on at his discretion, he probably has more time on his hands to be concerned about magic and perhaps ending up on the wrong side of it. I don't hate my OCs, honest! I just derive joy from their suffering- oh sweet God, I'm a monster._

_Well, that about wraps up this chapter, and I'm fairly certain this end note is longer than the actual chapter itself, so I'll just bid you adieu here and get to work on chapter three before it completely slips my mind._

_Thanks for reading, hope you're enjoying things so far!_

_-SC_


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